Meta Question

I ask every single question in the social section? What about you?

Being as I’m not interested in the “more stringent” rules in the General section, I ask every question in the Social Section. What about you? Are there really that many questions that people must have a solid, no bs answer on?

Most of mine are in social yeah, I like when shit gets diverse, but I do use general sometimes. When I really want/need to know something that I can’t really look up requires too much inner net searching skillz. Like once I wanted information about huge ships that I saw in Montréal. I wanted ship information, not some fucker’s life story. XD
There are definitely questions out there that aren’t fit for what social is for though. Like wanting to know how to do something specific, like hook up some electronic, needing some information about a law, some random homework question…or how to tackle a certain situation, like what should I do if the rent is short and the landlord is blackmailing me, saying that he’ll throw me out on my ass if I don’t fuck him in exchange for not having the whole rent.

@Rarebear Exactly. Well my underlying point is that for the really tough “general” questions, you don’t usually get an answer here.. hence so many orphans. To find answers to those questions you have to go to a different site.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting we get rid of the general section or anything… for me it is like a filter. Everything that I’m not interested in is in general (mostly).

for me it is like a filter. Everything that I’m not interested in is in general (mostly).

LOL that sounded pretty funny. XD I see your point though. And it’s true about the so many orphans. Thing is, a lot of those ask about devices or programs and wtv that the people are prolly better off asking at the official site problem shooting section of those products. :/

@digitalimpressionWell my underlying point is that for the really tough “general” questions, you don’t usually get an answer here.. hence so many orphans

That really isn’t true. The so called “tough” questions you speak of do get sincere, helpful answers. There was a time when Fluther didn’t have sections and any off topic discussion was not allowed. If off topic banter happened, the mods asked us to take it to pm’s. I have a feeling you wouldn’t have liked it here then.

@jonsblond Believe it or not I was here then. And you’re right. I didn’t like it. I know that some tough questions get answered, but look at all the orphans!. I would bet that the majority of people come here for the purpose of being social… not to “get answers”.

@digitalimpression There was a discussion about adding sections before they made the change. The community was basically split 50/50, with some liking the idea and others not wanting the change. For every person who you bet comes here to be social, I can show you someone who has left because of what Fluther has become. Don’t get me wrong. I like it here. I have a love/hate relationship with the site, but I am still here. ;)

@digitalimpression If you think about it, it wasn’t a minor change. The purpose of this site was to get answers for questions, it wasn’t to be social and ask game questions or “What should I name my cactus?”. (yes, I went there. :P) Many users felt the quality of questions declined after the change. Not minor at all, really.

I might have one or two that I posted in General, but after a brief search, I couldn’t find any of them.

So I currently post everything in either Social or Meta.

Even if I’m asking a serious question and I get a few irrelevant answers, I can scroll to the answers I’m looking for.

However, if I ask a serious question in Social and get about 40 wiseass answers before I find one that at least makes an attempt to be helpful, then I’ll probably post those questions subsequently in General.

@jonsblond I think I warned that having two types of questions did not help. People, I thought, wanted the freedom to be serious or not and to put them in the same place. It seems that people are voting with their fingers, so to speak, and that general is slowly losing its relevance.

I put my serious questions in social because the risk of silliness is worth the possibility of getting a more interesting discussion. Also, in a way, things seem more absurd on fluther than they used to be and I don’t feel as much of a need to ask for seriousness.

I used to post my questions in the social section myself until some users with nothing better to do would try to poke shots at your very question without attempting to answer it or hi-jack the thread. With some exceptions I plan on posting most of my questions in the general section now. I already posted my few questions there. I think that the general section is perhaps fluther’s greatest feature and I wish I would have had this option when my questions got hi-jacked on other sites.

@digitalimpression Not squabbling. Just having a discussion with you. =) (Many newer users have no idea what it was like here before the addition of sections. Fluther has changed quite a bit since I joined 3 years ago.)

Yes. I don’t like the censorship moderation in General, so I ask all my questions in Social, even questions that are deadly serious. And although I’ll sometimes answer questions in General, I avoid General for that very same reason.

I don’t ask every question of mine in the Social Section, but I can understand why someone would. The General Section does appear to be extremely strict… and I can see how that might feel quite overbearing at times.